At this sacred fence
there is no cedar standing
to mark out the place—
what did you take it for, then,
this branch of sakaki here
- Meaning
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There is no marking cedar at this sacred fence—so what did you mistake it for, that you came breaking off sakaki?
- Commentary
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Part One: Sakaki
Rokujo no Miyasudokoro resolved to break with Genji and go down to Ise with her daughter, now High Priestess. Around the seventh of the ninth month, with their departure close at hand, Genji came to the Shrine in the Fields. When she would send only messages and would not see him, he came up onto the veranda and pushed the sakaki branch he was carrying in under the blinds, saying it was the token of an unchanging heart. She answered with this poem.
"Kamigaki" is the fence around sacred ground, naming the place itself. "The marking cedar" alludes to the sacred cedar of Mount Miwa and means a sign showing where to call. There is no such sign here, she says, so what did he take it for—and the visit itself is quietly refused. Every element of the sacred setting is rebuilt into the logic of a refusal: a reply with no opening in it, very much her own.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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